Tears of the Sun: Ill-Conceived and Spiteful Boycott

Note: I just received an email request from an old friend to boycott the new Bruce Willis action film, "Tears of the Sun." Below is my response:

I'm sorry, but as an artist and writer, you've hit a hotbutton issue for me.
You're asking people to boycott a move you HAVEN'T SEEN because of
inaccurate portrayals of a COUNTRY YOU HAVEN'T VISITED?

Shades of Farenheit 451 here.

Also, since when has Hollywood ever done accurate portrayals of anything? I
remember watching "Sliver" and laughing about the million dollar glitterati
lives of New York authors, agents and book editors. Not! My sister, a
doctor who's worked in the military, watched the first lady's death scene in
"Independence Day" and was going "Why don't they just transfuse her?
They've got a whole base full of marines there and they've got them all
bloodtyped already."

So "Tears of the Sun" is inaccurate about Nigeria. Big whoop. The book
that it was probably based on (haven't read it, but this is typical with
action-adventure movies) or the screenplay that was sold was likely set
closer to the actual time of the assassination, but the producers decided
that a current day film would do better than a period piece since this is
fictionalized anyway. And if current day Nigeria doesn't have disease or
refugee camps, good for it.

It does, however, have a few other things, also rather undesirable.

For example, there were the Miss World riots that just happened. Here's the
lead from an article in case the link doesn't work:

Nov. 27, 2002 | The facts of the case are not in much dispute. A
journalist, Isioma Daniel, for the Nigerian newspaper This Day, made a crude
reference to the coming Miss World pageant in her column. She wrote last
week that Mohammed might approve of the contest since he might pick one of
his wives from the throng of beauties. This comment prompted an outpouring
of enraged Muslims from a local mosque, who grew into a crowd of rioters.
Christians were attacked, dozens of churches were burned, and some
Christians fought back. As many as 500 people were killed in the rampage,
and there are reports that Christians are now fleeing the area entirely.

http://archive.salon.com/news/col/sullivan/2002/11/27/nigeria/index.html

What's happened since? Well, Ms. Daniel is now in New York, fearing for her
life, since someone put a Salman Rushdie-style "Kill her!" fatwa on her, and
to top it off, the governor of her province was cheerleading the cries for
her blood.

There's also the matter of the continual Nigerian email scams we get in our
emailboxes, which if your read the news reports, have messy death on the
other end for people stupid enough to fall for them.

Also, from what I understand, Nigeria's current government is only three or
four years old. An assassination and bloody coup is hardly outside the
realm of possibility.

I'm sorry if the film makes things difficult for the Nigerian Tourist
Commission, but it's hardly going to cause any worse press than the Miss
World riots.

I'd also like to say is that ill-conceived and spiteful little boycotts like
this are the reason why most Western straight white male (yes, all four
here) artists won't touch minority or third world characters or plotlines
unless paid to do so or supremely inspired. The bitching is not worth it.
As W.E. DuBois said, "The black people want their art and their propaganda
to be one and the same." A true phrase, except it should be extended to all
minority groups.

This is art. This is fiction. This is not a film from the Nigerian Tourist
Commission (though is likely less prejudicial than a documentary on the
recent Miss World riots would be).

I'm not a fan of this sort of movie, but if you are and would have seen this
movie anyway, please do so. Censorship is an ugly thing, and mindless
boycotts are just another form of censorship.

Kevin Andrew Murphy
http://www.sff.net/people/Kevin.A.Murphy

Update Received the following response from another friend: My mother tells me "Tears of the Sun" is a remake of an older film about escorting escaped prisoners to safety, so the producers just picked Nigeria for the remake because the average American knows next-to-nothing about Africa and wants a shoot'em-up action picture and cares diddly for realism.